Roach says Bradley ducked Khan, may not deserve Pacquiao fight

“Everyone still hopes that that fight is out there with Mayweather, I’m sure. I’d rather see Mayweather against Manny than Tim Bradley against Manny. But is Pacquiao-Mayweather going to happen? We just have no idea. Mayweather is just so sporadic,” said Roach.

“But the thing is, I guess that if Floyd Mayweather doesn’t come to the table, then all that we’ve got is Tim Bradley. You know, I’ve been hearing Bradley’s name now for some time now, but I say that we’ve already got a difficult guy in front of us with Marquez.”

Pacquiao has battled Marquez to a draw and a split-decision victory in 2004 and 2008, respectively.

Marquez is fighting as a welterweight for only the second time, having lost his 147-pound debut by lopsided unanimous decision to Mayweather. Marquez will face Pacquiao, this time, at a catchweight of 144 pounds.

“I just want to clear the air with Marquez right now and just dominate him like we should,” said Roach. “We’ll look better this time against Marquez than Mayweather did against Marquez.”

Bradley burst onto the scene in April of 2009, when he rose from two knockdowns to score a unanimous decision that dethroned the hard-hitting Holt(27-4, 15 KOs) as WBO titleholder.

Bradley followed that up with his first successful defense, dropping Peterson (29-1-1, 15 KOs) in the third round on his way to a unanimous decision victory in December of 2009.

In January, Bradley added the WBC title to his collection after beating Alexander (22-1, 13 KOs) by an 11th-round technical decision. The bout went to the scorecards following an accidental clash of heads that caused a badly-bleeding laceration over one of Alexander’s eyes.

“Against Devon Alexander, Tim Bradley showed that he has three weapons,” said Roach. “Bradley’s got his left hand, his right hand and his forehead.”

Bradley was originally scheduled to face WBA and IBF counterpart Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KOs) on July 23, but he opted out and is now involved in a lawsuit with his co-promoters, Gary Shaw and Ken Thompson of Thompson Boxing Promotions.